Helena Römer (Römerówna)

Born on 11 May 1860 on the Ciskody estate, Vitebsk Governorate (today, Latvia), died in 1946 in Toruń (Poland). Circa 1889, she took art classes from her relative Edward Mateusz Römer and attended the Vilnius Drawing School. In 1894, she studied in Warsaw under Kazimierz Alchmowicz. Römer continued her studies in Munich. In the autumn of 1905, together with painter Eleonora Onichimowska she opened a private art school in the former Römer House on Bokšto street in Vilnius. Later, until 1915, her private painting school for girls operated there. In the years of World War I, she moved to Belarus, went to Moscow in 1918, and in the interwar period lived in Vilnius. She was a member of the Vilnius Art Society. In 1945, Römer moved to Poland. She painted landscapes capturing various moods of nature in oil and watercolour, compositions with horses, portraits, paintings of religious themes for churches, and made pen drawings in Indian ink.

Reference: Académie de Vilna. VILNIUS DRAWING SCHOOL 1866–1915. Exhibition Catalogue. Compiled by dr. J. Širkaitė, Vilnius 2017, P. 306.